Join us, Howard tells Labour voters

Michael Howard today made a bold appeal for disillusioned Labour voters to "come and join us" as he closed the Conservative party conference - his first as party leader and probably the last before a general election.

Publishing his "timetable for action" - a programme of policies for the first hours, days and months of a new Tory administration - Mr Howard claimed he would form a government "generous in spirit and competent in action".

And, ignoring the threat from the Liberal Democrats, he used his final address to delegates in Bournemouth to make a direct call to voters: "So to those who voted Labour last time, who dream of a better life, who work hard but feel let down, I say, come and join us."

Speaking to the media before his second, and final, speech of the conference, he insisted the general election was "there to be won".

But he ducked questions over whether he would quit if he lost the election. He said he was accountable to the party and it was up to members to decide his position.

He has told the conference Tory ministers would be sacked if they failed to deliver on their promises.

Asked if Margaret Thatcher should have sacked him from her cabinet over the poll tax, he conceded the policy was a mistake but sought to distance himself from it.

"The poll tax was a policy for which many people were responsible," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"I was responsible for taking the legislation through parliament. It was a mistake, of course it was a mistake. I have apologised for it."

The Tory leader again refused to commit to cutting taxes.

"It is because we are being so rigorous that I am not taking the easy path and making immediate promises about tax cuts, because I am not yet certain that we could deliver on those promises," he said.

In an earlier question and answer session with the retired broadcaster Sir Michael Brunson, Mr Howard admitted that "I don't think we always used our time in opposition as well as we should", and a confessed he had not originally wanted to return to frontline politics.

He told delegates that after leaving William Hague's frontbench he only returned under Iain Duncan Smith because of the number of complaints from constituents about the NHS - which he claimed numbered more in two years under Labour than in 17 years under the Tories.

He said: "I hadn't been intending to [come back to the frontbench] but I got very angry about what was happening to the NHS in my constituency."

Just as for his formal speech on Tuesday, Mr Howard was serenaded in and out of the conference hall to the stirring chords of Elgar's Nimrod.

Party chairman, Dr Liam Fox, sending delegates on their way, praised party unity.

He said: "This is more focused and more disciplined than any conference in recent years - and that comes from one man, Michael Howard."

Dr Fox also claimed there had not been so much "content and clarity" at a Tory party conference since 1986, when the party under Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbit launched their "Next Moves Forward" proposals which helped win the 1987 election.

The timetable for action document makes commitments ranging from cutting police paperwork and raising the state pension to tightening immigration controls.

Copies of the document were handed out to representatives at the conference, as Mr Howard and some of the shadow cabinet left to go campaigning in the nearby marginal constituency of Mid-Dorset and North Poole.

Some 11m copies of a leaflet version of the document will be sent to homes across the country, with Mr Howard and his shadow cabinet team distributing the first handful of copies to voters today.

It promised that, after coming to office, the Tories would: · Within the first hour, remove political advisers' power over civil servants and make the Office of National Statistics independent.· Within the first day, freeze civil service recruitment, set a date for a referendum on the EU constitution, abolish Whitehall targets for hospitals and appoint a minister for homeland security to coordinate action against terrorism. · Within the first week, end the early release scheme for prisoners, free schools to expand, halt proposed cuts in the armed forces and order the publication of hospital superbug infection rates. · Within the first month, introduce 24-hour surveillance at entry ports, restore the link between state pensions and earnings, start a prison-building programme and a 5,000-a-year police recruitment drive and launch an audit of speed cameras to weed out those that are unnecessary.

A Tory chancellor's first budget would include a timetable to cut billions of pounds from Whitehall bureaucracy and "set Britain on the path to lower taxes".

A programme of legislation will be set out to introduce a right to choose in education and health, allow Housing Association tenants to buy their own homes, abolish student fees, introduce a points system for immigrants, require drug-addicted criminals to choose between treatment or prison and free hospitals from central control.

Reactions

Delegates streaming out of the conference hall passed their verdict on the week.

Kulveer Ranger, from Hounslow, said: "This is my first conference and I've been very, very impressed. A lot of people have said there's a strong buzz about the place and it definitely has been all the way through. Michael Howard has rounded it off brilliantly.

"We have a very, very good chance of winning the next general election if we maintain the momentum we've had this week and get the message across. It's testament to what Liam Fox has done."

Richard Andrews, a councillor on Medway borough council, said: "It was one of the best conferences I've been to. It was completely different, with much less showmanship and much more work done. I did feel it got the message across.

"I think our chances at the next election are a lot better than people think they are.

Another delegate, Helen Wheeler from Coventry, gave her verdict: "Really upbeat. The surge of people really wanting to change and make a difference - it is almost got to a critical point now in this country where people want Tony Blair to go.

"We are on a roll and we have to gain the trust again. I understand the people felt out of faith with us. We have to prove again that we can earn their trust."

James Sproule, prospective parliamentary candidate for Streatham, said: "It has been a lot better than I expected. A lot of people were a bit depressed about the Tory party last week.

"The media has been negative about us but when it came to it we found there's a lot more on policy and I think the media has found that too. Can we win the next election? - absolutely!"